Gratitude

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others."

- Cicero

Having a grateful heart and being sincerely thankful for the things in our lives is much easier said than done. It is far too easy to simply accept that what we have is what we deserve rather than being grateful for it and building upon that gratitude.

When we allow ourselves to be filled with gratitude humility and teachability tend to follow naturally. Teachability allows us to grow and to mature in other ways. We can't, for example learn new skills if we are not willing to believe that someone out there has knowledge worth imparting.

Gratitude will also help us tie down our anger and give us a measure of peace that we cannot otherwise achieve in our lives.

Growth

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

- C.S. Lewis

There are a lot of things that a person can become in this life. Unfortunately none of those things happens without a lot of change and a lot of work. For us very often this means that we must do the work and make the change happen ourselves. Nobody else is going to do it for us.

The gem of truth I like in this quote is that we either have to do something or by default we won't achieve what we want. Sloth by its very nature drives us to become less than what we are, and that in and of itself is (or should be) enough to convince me to be a better person.